Friendly, trusting Japanese system for lining up for sports tickets

Murdo sends us a video showing "an Englishman in Japan showing how the Japanese queue for local football games. They stick sellotape to the ground with their information on it, marking their places in the queue so that they can return to that point in the future.
They even do it the night before the actual queue forms!"

I remember reading about how people queue for things in Cuba – on arrival, you ask who is last in line. That person tells you how many people are ahead of them in line, and they’re now free to leave. Tou, as the new last one in line, are now required to stay and keep track of how many people are served (subtracting that number from the total in line). When someone else arrives (adding one to the total), you hand off knowledge of the queue length, along with the the duty to stick around, to that person.

Knowing how many people are ahead of you, you have a pretty good idea of when you need to come back, so you can go do something else for a bit, and when you get back you know who should be ahead of you and behind you in line, so the queue can form up in the right order.

This kind of thing was common down in Portland, Oregon ahead of the annual Rose Festival Parade (it may still be, I don’t live there anymore). It wasn’t a particularly popular tradition: http://www.katu.com/news/local/7856462.html

Starting with the 2008 Rose Parade, the city banned claiming places with tape, rope, chairs, etc. You can stake out places in person starting 24 hours ahead. http://www.oregonlive.com/rosefest/index.ssf/2008/06/portland_enforces_noducttaping.html

Good old wacky Japan! I love that you can leave your water bottle there the night before and be assured that it will still be there for you to pick up at game time: a world without theft! When I was there I wondered to a Japanese friend why none of the parked bicycles had locks but you locked up your umbrella in the umbrella stands outside the department stores. He thought about it for a sec and then said that it was because there was no chance of you getting the wrong bike since they all had license plates under the seat but that umbrellas were pretty much all alike so you might get the wrong one without the lock and key system. Bicycle theft was not a concept. That said, there are some strange crimes that only ever happen in Japan so I suppose it all evens out.

You must have been in opposite-land in Japan. In Osaka and Kobe bike theft was rampant, but no one paid attention to umbrellas since you just took whichever identical cheap one you saw in the drying rack. Umbrellas were almost like Take-a-Penny, Leave-a Penny, while my flatmate’s bicycle got stolen 3 times.

The most annoying part of the whole thing, however, was when I was questioned by a (friendly) cop, who told me that, “A lot of Russians roam around these parts,” a rather xenophobic statement that seemed to imply that no good, law-abiding Japanese would ever steal something, oh no.

Having lived in Japan for 10 years, I can confirm that, yes, this IS the norm for football matches in most cities with J-League teams. Now, it’s important to note, that this sidewalk-taping for a place in the queue is only for the “fan clubs” section behind the home goal. Unreserved seating. This is not SO prevalent for the main stands where seats are often assigned. The other thing to note, is unlike what the fellow who filmed this figured, no you CANNOT just reserve your place a week ahead.

In fact, there is a very specific list of rules you must follow. At the local home stadium where I live, the rules include: no queuing before 6pm on the day before the match. Then, once you have placed your tape down, there are periodic “spot” checks by stadium staff. They occur at pre-arranged times, usually 9pm, 11pm, 6 am the next morning, then 9 am. If there is nobody from your party (at least 1 person) standing near the tape during a spot check, the staff will consider your reservation abandoned, tear up your tape and you will lose your spot. But by about mid-morning, fans start to trickle in, and they just kill a few hours in front of the stadium with a picnic… Drink beers, eat some yakitori and soba noodles… And when the gates open 2.5 hours before the match starts, they go in to their favorite spot behind the goal, and set up shop with banners, flags, musical instruments, ladders, you name it…

Oh, and in all my time here and going to watch footy (I’ve been a season ticket holder for several years), I’ve never, EVER, not once seen a Japanese hooligan. I’ve never ever once seen a streaker, a fight break out, or even a verbal altercation for that matter. Fans here are ridiculously polite. They don’t even call down the other team during the match. They just cheer for their own side.

Weird. I wonder if the most popular chant is, “The referee’s a respectable gentlemen with 20/20 vision and honourable parents”.I wonder what Japanese fans would make of an English game. The celery song might be especially confusing…

This reminds me of a similar, but infuriating, practice in Singapore. Food courts are usually crowded during lunch time. So Singaporeans will place a tissue packet on a table to “reserve” the table, before going off to order their food. Whereas in every other country, you order and pick up your food, then look (or wait) for a table.

Woe betide those that ignore this and sit at a table with a tissue packet on it. The Ugly Singaporean will come back and tell you, “I put tissue there already what! Cannot see ah?”. Thereafter, you can choose to either docilely get up and hunt for another table, or just ignore the sonofabitch.